What We’ve Been Up To

I just realized it’s been eleven days since I posted. After brief stops in Vermont and northern New York, we’ve now been at Four Mile Creek State Campground for six days.

For the most part this has been a pleasant surprise. The last time we were here (May of 1999) they were pulling RV’s out of their waterlogged sites with tractors and dumping front end loads of wood chips at people’s trailer doors so they could get out without sinking into muck. It’s drier now, but I also see they’ve added drainage in what were the worst spots.

This weekend the place has filled up…

but we still have a distant view of the lake from our campsite.

It is nice to be back on the shore of Lake Ontario.

I always love looking across the lake at Toronto.

Of course the real reason we’re here is to visit family and friends. And we have been doing that. And I have been mostly forgetting to take pictures. But yesterday I caught my sister Joan and my mother as they were looking for a checkout line at Walmart. No one would ever guess that my mom, hurrying along behind Joan, was 105. How lucky we are to have her.

I took no pictures of Dick and Sue Manning on Wednesday, but Thursday, when my friend Erin and I went to Amherst State Park I did take some photos.

Neither of us knew this existed but found it when looking for a trail where we could walk with Matey. It’s a lovely place, though quite small. A fellow walker told us the land came from an order of nuns who used it to grow the food for the convent. They sold this land, just north of the village of Williamsville, for a pittance to the state of New York so it could stay open land.

We then put Matey in the stroller and walked in Glen Falls Park, where dogs aren’t allowed.

This little pond is formed by the water that was diverted and used to turn the mills. I would guess that makes it the old mill pond.

And this is the old mill,

now a candy store with a very old interior.

I also remembered to take a few photos of Erin’s back yard. With its little falls and lily pond…

it’s stepping stones leading…

to a secret garden behind the garage her place is a like a botanical garden in miniature.

So we have been enjoying ourselves and enjoying the pleasures of Western New York, including this butterfly on Erin’s giant butterfly bush…

and this cluster of tiny, tiny mushrooms here at the State Park.